Lighting your reef... Best bang for your buck.

[sanchezkk]

What did you want to keep in your tank?

Nothing too exotic as of yet. Just softies and spa corals.

 

[Psychocircus91]

What do you think of this?
48'' Aquarium Light 6X 54 324 Watt T5 HO Light Built in Timer Lunar Moon New | eBay

where do you find this stuff? every time i think i've made up my mind about lights...

 

[mr_X]

Just get a pair of these dimmable Taotronics jobs and be done with it. You can dim them if they are too powerful, but you will never need to upgrade. Straight blues and whites.

 

[TommyP]

I think I may go with that 6 bulb t5 you posted only because I can't afford the 2 sets of dimmable LEDS. At least theres an option for everyone!

 

[mr_X]

Just remember, you are going to want to change out the lamps for better ones, and the better ones are 20+ dollars a piece, and you'll be doing that every 8-12 months.

 

[TommyP]

That's true, I keep forgetting that. Ill have to think about this hard.

 

[Robbiesamp]

Reef breeders any good I want 2 16 in on my corner tank can anyone post pics of them and corals under them
Thanks

 

[Terrance]

Ok, I tried taking pictures but they aren't coming out right. I also took a video. I think you can somewhat make out what I mean. Take a look-
http://s206.photobucket.com/albums/bb239/GORILLA_MONSOON/?action=view&current=Picture004.mp4

Is that with the optics?

 

[mr_X]

No. Without the optics. He forgot to install them. He's supposed to send them along for me to install, but nothing as of yet.
Again for the folks who don't like to click back a page or two, I found the extra colors to be the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve. Straight blue and whites for me. I left the RB fixture over my tank for the heck of it, but I do not like how that area in the tank looks at all. I'm just checking now to see if the corals behave differently as a result of the different colors.
Terrance, the only thing I think the optics are going to do for me is allow me to go longer between having to use the mag float. These units are already powerful enough for whatever you want to do. I have a clam and sps on the sand bed doing very well.

 

[LaWoWee]

The optics just allow deeper penetration for taller tanks. I had one with them and they were strong but didnt provide a wider coverage than the other ones i had without optics.

 

[Mrc8858]

I don't own leds yet but I'm not much of a fan of the focused optics. Gives you great depth but I hate when you can see the multiple "columns" of light at the top of the tank from individual lights.

 

[mr_X]

I understand that. I was simply stating that if I'm growing sps at 30" away without optics, I'm not too worried about it. Logan from Reefbreeders was shipping me some optics, and he mentioned shipping out 2 royal blues to replace the reds. Quite accommodating!

 

[Terrance]

I understand that. I was simply stating that if I'm growing sps at 30" away without optics, I'm not too worried about it. Logan from Reefbreeders was shipping me some optics, and he mentioned shipping out 2 royal blues to replace the reds. Quite accommodating!

The reefbreeder post pics when you hook up the 2 royal blue. I will probably email Logan the about the same issue.

 

[sanchezkk]

You guys are over my head......

 

[Sniperhank]

You guys are over my head......

Summary, red is ugly and unknown if assists coral color and growth. Experiment continues, but would prefer to look at a tank with just blue and whites.

 

[Robbiesamp]

What about green only like 2 tho ??

 

[Robbiesamp]

Also is there purple ??

 

[mr_X]

I don't really see the green. I'm not bothered by it. What's the point though? If the red Diodes wash out the red corals, won't the greens do the same to anything green?
There are violet diodes. They may be contributing to the red tinge, but it's hard to say without swapping out the reds to see.

 

[Animal-Chin]

When i set up the leds 2 weeks ago i really noticed the red but i don't so much anymore. The pink hue seems to really have faded for whatever reason. There were a few days where i thought about seeing if i could just remove the 4 reds but now im just going to leave them. My lps and softies are all doing great but my sps is taking off. My acro frag is gettin more and more colorfull and is growing like crazy!

 

[mr_X]

I think that's from the more powerful lighting, rather than some red in the tank.